Ancillary Product (Research) Conventions of a poster

As a way of a company advertising their new media product, which could be a film, documentary, short etc. is making ancillary products, such as posters and magazines. This helps to build up the excitement for the upcoming product being released, and gathers more fans for the product. There are many codes or conventions that these follow in order to be successful.
Relation to genre: Firstly, there must be something related to the genre within the poster, to meet the audience pleasures. This means that the audience get more excited about the out coming product, and means that there is more likely to be more money made when the film eventually gets released in cinemas. This relation to the genre may be subtle: for example, if a film is sci-fi and based in space, there could be a small window in a part of the poster which shows some parts of space. Or, if it was a documentary poster, there could be a small safari truck in the background to signify that it is based on an African safari. There can also be relation to the genre within the typography, such as advertising the film as being the 'documentary of the year', or the 'horror film to watch'. This shows to the target audience what they are letting themselves in for if they decide on spending their money on this.
BBFC certificate: usually clearly labelled on a poster so the age restrictions are obvious to the audience.
Focal Image: placed in the center of an image, to draw attention and informs the reader on what sort of a film it is. Main indicator, and mainly based around main characters in the film.
Star person/s: Hollywood conglomerates tend to rely on these to be on of the main selling points of the film- attracts the attention of the audience. For example, if Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon were to be featured on the front of a poster advertising a film, the audience would most likely hold the assumption that this would be a serious film because these two don't tend to get associated with comedic films.
Large Title/font: catches the eye of the audience, and causes them to want to read more into the film and see what it is about. One of the main graphic aspects of the poster.
Release date: these tend to be featured fairly obviously on the front of posters. This causes the audience to have more of an awareness for when the film will come out, and can create excitement for the product being created.
Below are some generic, archetypal film posters that are effective to catching the attention of the audience and gets a fan base started.